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REVIEW 



|1 



ilEV. DR. CHANNING'S LETTER 



JONATHAN PHILLIPS, ESQ. 



SLAVERY QUESTION. 



BOSTON : 

JOHN H. EASTBURN, PRINTER, 
1839. 



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REVIEW 



REV. DR. CHANNING'S LETTER 



JONATHAN PHILLIPS, ESQ. 



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SLAVERY QUESTION. 




BOSTON : X^ wash\^ 

JOHN II. EASTBURN, PRLNTER. 

1839. 



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REVIEW. 



Remarks on the Slavery Question, in a Letter to Jonathan Phillips, 
Esq., by William E. Channing. Boston : James Munroe and Com- 
pany, 1839. Cambridge : Stereotyped and printed by Folsom, 
Wells and Thurston, 12mo. pp. 91. 

At the last session of Congress Mr. Clay of 
Kentucky, delivered his sentiments on the Slavery 
question. Recently Dr. Channing of Massachusetts 
has pubhshed his remarks on the same subject. 

These several productions are before the public. 
They are in strong contrast to each other, and highly 
characteristic of the sources whence they came. 

The one is the speech of a Senator to the states- 
men of his country, the other is the letter of a cler- 
gyman to the deacon of his parish. The speech pre- 
sents the subject in its vast relations to the whole 
human family, the country, the constitution and the 
laws, and applies to it those comprehensive and pro- 
found principles which are alone competent to regu- 
late the affairs of mankind. The letter treats it as a 
local and limited institution, operating principally on 
a particular caste, and brings to it the technical rules 
of a scholastic system that can never be enforced. 

The speech considers things -as they are and bears 
practically on the business and affairs of life. The let- 
ter deals with a theoretical state of things which can 
never have real existence. The speech takes man as 



it finds him, and proposes to soften the passions of 
his nature and control the motives of his conduct, the 
letter considers man as it would have hira to be, and 
teaches an extravagant and therefore a false morality. 

The argument of Mr. Clay, even when it fails to 
convince our understanding, brings us to a doubt 
whether it may not be safer to trust his judgment 
than our own. The logic of the letter leads to an 
eventual connection between the races at which the 
soul sickens with loathing and disgust. 

The speech is calculated to calm the agitation and 
soothe the asperities of past discussion ; the letter to 
aggravate and prolong the irritation it has occasioned. 
The one is the herald of peace, the other of war. 

Mr. Clay entered upon the subject at the risk of 
losing the good opinion of a portion of his fellow citi- 
zens at a time when his own interests were most con- 
cerned to conciliate universal favor. A senator of Caro- 
lina has informed us that he was consulted on some 
matter in the speech, and that he suggested to Mr. 
Clay a doubt as to the policy of delivering it. He 
was told, in reply, that his opinion was asked not as 
to what was expedient to be done, but as to what 
was right. There is a moral sublimity in the declar- 
ation which would have immortalized a Roman. 
Dr. Channing is to gain new popularity for his new ef- 
forts, and enjoy the incense of applause from partial 
friends who reverence his talents as Pagans do the sun. 

Nor is there greater dissimilarity in the strength 
of the argument than in the stvle in which it is con- 



ducted. The speech meets its opponents on terms 
of equahty and treats them with the respect and 
courtesy due to honorable but mistaken men; the 
letter assumes the attitude of authority, arrogates to 
itself the entire possession of humanity and sound 
morals, and treats its opponents with an affected com- 
passion which seems very much like scorn. 

We have looked with some care to find the exact 
design of this letter. It was "suggested" — as it 
says — by the speech, but it does not pretend to be 
a methodical discussion of the subject. It cannot 
be deemed an attempt at refutation so much as con- 
tradiction. Some part of the speech is very slight- 
ly noticed. To the whole constitutional argument — 
by far the most labored and least satisfactory part of 
Mr. Clay's effort — it offers no answer at all. It seems 
to be rather intended to settle up old scores. Dr. 
Channing some time ago left his pulpit for Faneuil 
Hall. He became a petitioner for a pubhc meeting 
and a speaker in it. He saw for the first time some- 
thing of the rough and tumble of life, and how little 
able the mere student is to manage the concerns of a 
multitude. This letter is probably intended to re- 
cover his lost ground. 

We shall examine his new position vvith some 
freedom and ascertain whether the strength of his 
entrenchments conform to the reputation of the com- 
mander. 

The first point of the letter which we deem it 
proper to notice is the writer's separation from the 



6 

Abolitionists. ^' I am not of them/' he says — '• and 
notliing would induce me to become responsible for 
their movements." We do not admire or admit this 
disclaimer of the party. He is one of them who does 
their work, whether he professes to be so or not. So 
far as an actual connection with their societies may 
be necessary to constitute an Abolitionist the declara- 
tion is undoubtedly true. So far as their internal 
dissentions are concerned, and their quarrels about 
the rights of women as well as men belong to tlie 
party, it is not wonderful that a sensible man would 
hesitate to be responsible for their movements. 

But he gives his name and his talents to the great 
objects of the cause, which they carry no doubt be- 
yond his notions of propriety. Without the aid he 
brings to it directly and indirectly by his writings, 
his speeches, his petitions for public meetings, and 
his personal interference, the party here would be 
absolutely insignificant. He is identified with it at 
the South. He carries to it the importance which 
his connection with a large class of the christian com- 
munity enables him to possess ; and whether he be- 
longs to one or other of the factions into which the 
party is divided, or carries on the war, a party by 
himself, he spreads the unhallowed and wasting fires 
which are to burn over the fields of a contented and 
prosperous people. He brings on the battle fierce, 
furious and exterminating, which sooner or later is to 
follow the ring of arms, and all attempt to evade the 
responsibility is like the claim of the trumpeter to be 



considered a non combatant because he excited oth- 
ers v.'ithout fighting himself. 

We cannot but wonder at the rashness of any one 
who takes this course. From the lecturer against 
war — the immoveable advocate of peace, the propa- 
gator of charity, affection, love and all the social vir- 
tues, it would be absolutely incredible without con- 
stant proof of the inconsistency of mankind under the 
hallucinations of fanaticism. 

What is the common object of Dr. C. and the 
Abolitionists ? 

In a population of seven millions there are nearly 
three millions of slaves. Right or wrong the masters 
of these slaves deem them to be property ; and so far 
as the laws of the States in which they are held can 
effect the object, they are the property of their mas- 
ters. The value of this property is estimated by 
Mr. Clay at twelve hundred millions of dollars, and 
the letter '' admits it without dispute." 

It is property most intimately connected with all 
the relations of society and coexistent or nearly so 
with the political existence of the States in which it 
is held. They who deem themselves owners of this 
property have been educated to believe in as perfect 
an inviolability of their title to it, as to the soil on 
which they live, and moreover are firmly persuad- 
ed that it gives to the soil itself all the value it pos- 
sesses, so that without slave labor their flourishing 
fields would be barren wastes. 

One object of the Abolition movement is to break 



8 

up and annihilate this ^'immense amount of prop- 
erty," and to change all the relations of society by an 
unparalleled revolution. 

Again these three millions of human beings held as 
slaves are of a different race from their masters, with 
natural habits, manners, appetites, and passions of an 
original and distinctive character. They are ignorant, 
uneducated, debased. ." Their laziness, thievishness, 
lying propensities, sulkiness, the natural fruits of their 
condition," (we quote from Dr. C. p. 31) give indi- 
cation of a ferocious revenge whenever opportunity 
offers, and the object of the Abolitionists is to give 
the opportunity and run the risk of its consequences. 

Once more. The owners of these millions of dark 
colored beings see no possibility of keeping two races 
of men under one government. They anticipate 
extermination or amalgamation as the necessary con- 
sequence of a change of relationship, and the Aboli- 
tionists are desirous of making the experiment, some 
of them not regarding one of the alternatives as a 
very great evil ; the more considerate trusting to 
Providence for providing some middle course yet un- 
known and inexplicable. 

What are the means by which these objects are 
pursued ? A war of the most irritating and provok- 
ing character against the institutions, the laws and the 
men of the slave holding States. A war not of that 
generous and noble cast which is waged between the 
chivalrous and the brave, where life is perilled against 
life, but a war of miputations, censures, accusation, 



9 

backbiting, and all uncharitableness ; — a war calcu- 
lated to arouse the fiercest and wildest passions of 
our nature, and sooner or later to quench them in 
blood. 

The letter writer is more guarded in his expres- 
sions than the society to which he does not belong, 
but he too holds up the institution as an offence 
against morality, and the men by whom the institu- 
tion is maintained, as criminals and sinners. There 
is very little candor in his pretending to " separate 
the subject from personalities," or ''to represent the 
slave holder as an abstraction" when he ventures to 
speak of Mr. Clay as bearing, because he is a slave- 
holder a " brand" the brand of a felon " which shows 
through all the brightness of his talents and fame." 
It is this kind of language which has been the cause 
of most of the trouble we have experienced. 

One half the agitation in the New England States 
has been produced by exciting the apprehensions of 
silly women and men like women, and operating up- 
on them by the same means which have elsewhere 
been resorted to for alarming the consciences of the 
ignorant, and inducing them to build convents, feed 
monks and purchase absolution for sin. With all 
our boasted improvement there is much of the same 
means in operation here with effects not greatly dis- 
similar. 

Whether therefore the writer of the latter does 
or does not profess to belong to the organized party 
of Abohtionists, and whether he be or be not an- 



10 

swerable for their minor delinquencies, he stands be- 
fore the world and by this very letter presents himself 
a principal in the great work they are laboring to ac- 
complish. 

The next topic on which we have a word to say 
is that of '• interference^'^ 

The letter writer maintains " that there is a moral 
interference with our fellow creatures at home and 
abroad, not only to be asseited as a right but binding 
as a duty." And he proceeds by this letter, as be- 
fore by other published works on this subject, to act 
upon the right and discharge his obligation. 

We learn from this two things. First that such 
works as this letter and consequently all similar pub- 
lications by the Abolitionists are admitted to be an 
interference with the local affairs of other States of 
our Union. 

Secondly, we learn to what extent such interfer- 
ence may be carried. We find it is the part of moral 
duty to taunt our Southern brethren with a condition 
of things which they did not produce ; which, upon 
entering into life, this generation at least found deeply 
established — which is generally considered a great 
evil, and which no human being has discovered any 
feasible way to change. 

We learn that the right of moral interference au- 
thorizes us to tell them that by the condition of things 
under which they were born and are compelled to 
live, they are robbers, felons, plunderers of other 



11 

men's property — that a " Bkand" is burned in upon 
the flesh of the best of them '' which no fame nor tal- 
ents can obhterate." 

We may, it seems, produce all the ill blood and 
unkind feeling which such irritation will excite, and 
justify ourselves as christian moralists exercising a 
right and discharging a duty. And this is not an 
idle claim. The works of Dr. Channing and the 
publications of the Abolitionists have done and are 
doing all this, and if the defence does not cover it all 
their whole defence is worthless. 

Next we proceed to examine the foundation this 
claim to the right and duty of such moral interfer- 
ence. We learn from the letter that it is deduced 
from the principles of Christianity by which " we may 
act on foreign countries by moral means for moral 
ends, and on the slave States because the free and 
the slave States are one nation." 

The argument we suppose to be this. The insti- 
tution of slavery is a violation of the law of God. 
The act of holding slaves is therefore a great sin and 
wickedness. The existence of the institution conse- 
quently becomes a wrong to the whole country and to 
mankind. We may therefore interfere by moral means, 
in tender regard to the slave holder pro salute animce, 
for the welfare of his soul, and in justice to ourselves 
that retribution for this great transgression may not 
be visited upon us. 

Admit all this ; agree that a coarse violation of all 
the charities of life, a self-assumed superiority and 



12 

pharasalcal pride are justifiable moral means suited 
practically to obtain our end, and exerted in good 
faith for that purpose alone, (which indeed it is very 
hard to believe)— the argument does not touch our 
case, because we are bound by solemn league and 
covenant to permit slavery in the South and West ; 
because we of New England are as essentially parties 
to the actual existence of Slavery as the slave hold- 
ers themselves ; because we have secured to ourselves 
and do actually partake the fruits, profits and enjoy- 
ments of Slavery, and can therefore have no moral 
right to interfere with our associates in crime until 
we have first washed our own hands of the defiling 
iniquity ! 

Our political duties are regulated by the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, and are to be determined 
by correct views of the principles and doctrines it con- 
tains. 

This constitution is a form of government estab- 
lishing an integral empire from distinct independent 
sovereignties, with feelings, manners, opinion and belief 
of almost every diflTerent shade and variety. Compro- 
mise was at the foundation of any government at all. 
Concession, large, free, voluntary concession was re- 
quired on every side, and on every side was made. 

The convention saw this, and the painful struggle 
it occasioned shook them almost to dissolution. The 
people, called on to ratify the act of the convention, 
saw this. They felt that a national government was 
to be purchased at an immense sacrifice, but they de- 



13 

cided wisely, practically, honestly, between anarchy 
and peace. 

This constitution recognizes the existence of Slave- 
ry in the United States. It provides for the continu- 
ance and security of the institution. It holds us as 
parties to it. Most of us have sworn to support this 
Constitution. All of us are bound to do so, whether 
under oath or not. We enjoy its blessings. We 
partake of the advantages, which we exacted in re- 
turn for the concessions we have made. We pos- 
sess what we purchased in the freshness and fulness 
of our contract, and it is a base and false morality, or 
rather a shameless and disgraceful fraud, which hypo- 
critically assumes the garb of piety, to cheat our fel- 
low citizens out of the price. 

That the constitution of the United States recog- 
nizes the institution of Slavery and that we of the 
Northern States are parties to this recognition and 
bound to observe it, is apparent from the language of the 
constitution and the known circumstances of the time 
of its adoption. The convention and people of 1788 
knew that Slavery existed under the authority of State 
laws. They reserved to the States the continuance 
of all powers not delegated to the United States, and 
they did not delegate any power of interfering with 
Slavery. Massachusetts having joined in a political 
Confederacy with Carolina, knowing her to have es- 
tablished Slavery, and having agreed as a part of the 
contract that she shall manage her own aflairs in her 
own way ; the citizens of Massachusetts violate this 



14 

contract when they interfere with the domestic rela- 
tions thus recognized. 

The Constitution provides that the common gov- 
ernment of the country shall be sustained by an ad- 
ditional power given to the white men of the Slave 
holding States in the numerical ratio of their Slaves, 
and it compensates this grievous inequality by shift- 
ing in part the burthen of direct taxation from the 
free to the Slave holding States. 

We have nothing to do with the justice or proprie- 
ty of this provision. We say here only that it was 
deliberately made on what was deemed good consid- 
erations, and that we thereby became partners, co- 
operators and principals in the institution of Slavery. 

The constitution obliges us to arm in sustaining the 
institution of Slavery by putting down an insurrec- 
tion whenever it occurs. 

The military power of New England and New 
York is therefore as much pledged in upholding 
Slavery as that of Carolina. So the force of Carolina 
is pledged to prevent invasion as much as that of 
Maine. We promise to act when the case requires 
action, and the promise may prevent the necessity of 
any action at all. Whether we should perform our 
promise or not is another affair. Possibly some mod- 
ern code of morality would find a way for us to for- 
feit our honor and our word without sin. It is so 
nominated in the Bond, nevertheless, and it binds us 
not only to put down insurrection when it arises, but 
to do nothing to excite it. 



15 

The constitution provides that the citizens of a free 
State shall surrender a fugitive slave. '' We are the 
jailers and constables of the institution." So says 
the letter. If this be so, is it not by force of our 
contract ; and while the contract continues are we to 
confide in any system of ethics that would preach us 
into a conscientious violation of its terms ? 

To all this we were contented to submit for the 
advantages we secured in return. Among these ad- 
vantages was the entire coasting trade for American 
vessels, that, is in a very large proportion, for the ves- 
sels of the non-Slave-holding States. The inter- 
course thus secured to us, gives us a direct interest in 
Slave labor, so that it may be doubtful whether the 
profitable results of that labor have been greater to 
the South or the North. Let it be traced through 
all its ramifications in the shipping, navigating, com- 
mercial and manufacturing concerns of New England 
and New York, in all the domestic and household ar- 
rangements in every domicile in the country — with 
every family where cotton is worn or sugar is eaten, 
with every fortune that has been acquired by inheri- 
tance or marriage, and with the price of labor among 
the poorest members of the community, and it will 
be found that under the contract of the constitution a 
very large part of the profit of slave labor is gathered 
and possessed by the free States, while the ignominy 
and the curse of the institution are thrown upon the 
States where it is performed. 

The morality which under these circumstances en- 



16 

forces our interference with the Southern institutions 
of Slavery is the morahty of teaching us to violate 
our solemn contracts ; it is the morality of sharpening 
that huckstering ingenuity, which has been too justly 
ascribed to the yankee pedlar, of holding to both 
ends of the bargain. 

There is no higher morality than that which enjoins 
fidelity to contracts — fidelity in the spirit as well as 
the letter ; and no meaner chicanery or fraud than 
that which attempts to creep from their obligation by 
keeping the word of promise to the ear and breaking 
it to the hope. We need not enumerate the provis- 
ions of the constitution already adverted to in order 
to ascertain our duty as faithful citizens, because 
there is a broader and more expansive principle of 
honesty. We know what was intended at the time 
of the contract. We know if a claim to the interfer- 
ence now urged by Dr. C. and the Abolitionists had 
been proposed and insisted on in the convention, no 
constitution could have been formed. 

But the constitution exists and we are at this mo- 
ment reaping its advantages, and yet it is seriously 
proposed, as a matter of moral duty, so to interfere 
with its establishments, as to deprive one of the con- 
tracting parties of the advantages it secures to them. 
We eschew all such morality. 

But this interference is only by " moral suasion.'* 
It only goes to persuade the Southerner to enfran- 
chise his Slaves. An excuse this, the very quintes- 
sence of Jesuitism. We exhibit the Slave holder to 



17 

the world as a thief, a robber, a spoiler of other men's 
property — grossly guilty of immorality and crime. 
We venture to affirm that each one is marked by 
a felon's " brand," which the fame and talents of the 
most exalted of their statesmen cannot conceal ; — we 
send forth our missionaries upon their borders to play 
upon the passions of the servile class and encourage 
them to " seek through blood and slaughter their long 
lost liberty." We alarm their peaceful citizens in the 
same way ours would be alarmed if a menagerie was to 
be turned loose on the population in our streets ; we 
compel them to change their course of conduct in self- 
defence, to curtail the privileges, to restrict the indul- 
gences of the Slaves, lest insurrection should follow 
causes naturally calculated, but not indeed intended 
to produce it ; we destroy by the natural action of hu- 
man passions, all kindness, sympathy and friendship, 
between the two great sections of American citizens. 
We excite our own people into a detestation of the 
immoral South, and spread, broad-cast, the seeds of 
strife, jealousy and revenge, and all this we call a 
moral suasion — deep reverence for the laws of God, 
commanded by pure morality, kindness, good will and 
brotherly love — the obligation of duty on our part 
and great tenderness for the human soul. If it is not 
calculated to bring religion into scorn it is only be- 
cause we take our choice between fanaticism and 
hypocrisy. 

These considerations confirm our opinion that citi- 
zens of the free States have no right to interfere with a 

2* 



18 

Southern domestic institution. The letter writer 
thinks he proves the right of interference when he 
proves our connection with slavery. The fallacy of 
his argument consists in extending the right beyond 
the cause which gives the right. It is our connection 
with slavery, which, according to his argument, gives 
us the right of interference. Then let us interfere 
not with others concern but our own, not with 
Southern Slavery but with Northern connexion with 
it. Let us withdraw from the connection and purify 
our own garments, and then we may more properly 
speak of the discoloration and stain upon our neigh- 
bors. This brings the question to the true issue. 
When we come to the conclusion that Slavery is a 
sin and a crime and a gross immorality, which it 
becomes us at all hazards and at all consequences to 
annihilate, we should begin the sacrifice of interest at 
home. We are not to inquire whether the Union 
will be dissolved by the agitation of the question, we 
must march boldly to the work and with our own 
right arm dissolve it. Let it perish, it is the asylum 
of the Slave holder, the guardian of slavery. When 
we shall have cut the cord which binds us to tolerate 
Slavery, to sustain it, and in case of insurrection to 
maintain it by force, we may next treat the Slave 
States as we might those foreign States, in which, 
according to the benevolent and candid illustration of 
this letter, every child born with black hair should be 
put to death, or every eighth child slauglitered by a 



19 

barbarous decree, or a large part of the population 
should perish by gladiatorial games. 

Yet even in such cases the laws of morality, as we 
understand them, would confine our interference to 
our own actions, if by a regulation of our own actions 
instead of our neighbors the world could be purified 
from the corruption we affect to deplore. 

It is manifest^dly so in the case before us. The 
product of Slave labor forms the staple of commerce 
for the world. If our free citizens would neither feed 
or clothe the Slave, or supply the means of doing it, 
if they Avould not purchase, transport, use or be con- 
cerned in any way, with the products of Slave labor, 
and would persist in this self denial for a year or two. 
Slavery in the Southern and Western States would 
die of consumption. To be sure, success in this mat- 
ter would be somewhat of a hopeless or herculean 
task, but whether it be easier to persuade our neigh- 
bors to give up twelve hundred milhons of dollars, or 
stimulate our own morality to the self-sacrifice of the 
conveniences and luxuries which Slave labor produ- 
ces, they must decide w^ho propose this crusade up- 
on crime. 

We lay down the rule that we have no moral right 
to complain of our neighbor, when by our own ac- 
tions we aid, abet and encourage him in the commis- 
sion of crime, and that it is with very little grace 
we call him a thief, when we are ourselves accesso- 
ries to the felony and receivers of the stolen goods. 
When we act up to our preaching and refuse a prac- 



20 

tical concurrence in the iniquity, the iniquity is at an 
end. 

We know not how much of any man's fortune was 
made directly or indirectly by Slave labor, but we 
hold it to be monstrous self delusion or gross hypocri- 
cy for men who have invested their funds in the man- 
ufacturing establishments of the North, — for the oper- 
atives who work at the mills, for the ship own- 
er, the navigator, or the farmer whose products are 
raised for exportation to the Slave States, and for 
any man who eats, drinks or wears any thing that 
is raised or comes cheaper to him by reason of Slave 
labor to pretend either the tenderness of his con- 
science or the indignation of his morality. His ac- 
tions contradict his words. 

The letter puts the right of interference " on the 
greatness of the evil," — because ^' Slavery is not an 
imaginary monster but a combination of wrongs, and 
crimes and woes, not only justifying but demanding 
the opposition of all good men." 

This dealing in abstraction is entirely inadmissible. 
If there be wrongs and crimes there must be wrong 
doers and criminals — and the writer must intend to 
declare that our fellow citizens of the Slave holding 
States, the masters of Slaves, are monsters of iniqui- 
ty, perpetrating an enormity of evil, branded, like 
Cain, not to be killed, but calumniated ; and that in 
directing upon them the odium of his fellow citizens, 
hatred, malice and all uncharitableness he is serving 
the cause of morality and doing honor to God. 



21 

The amount of all his charity for the South and 
West is found in the admission of their insensibility. 
^' Habit has hardened them to Slavery," but our free 
and purer minds, or more intellectual and moral vis- 
ion is opened to its horrors, and although we do not 
see our ow^n direct agency and sin and crime, we may 
thank God we fast twice in the week and are not 
like other men. 

The writer admits and indeed argues that Slavery 
touches us, that it bears upon us, that it is connected 
with us, but he wholly evades the argument, that we 
of the North — that he himself individually and per- 
sonally is for all moral responsibility as actual a Slave 
holder by his voluntary participation of the fruits of 
Slave labor, as if his fortune was in negroes instead 
of cotton, and his enjoyment consisted in wielding 
the lash, instead of paying a less price for the fruits of 
the labor which the lash has stimulated. 

Now if the fact be admitted as strongly as is alleg- 
ed, we deny the right of interference thereby because 
our fellow citizens of the Slave holding States are not 
voluntary agents in having caused, or in maintaining 
and continuing the institution of Slavery — because it 
is a millstone, the heavier and more grievous in pro- 
portion as the representation is true, fastened upon 
them by a past generation and continued by a power 
which they cannot influence or control. 

We might as well rail at the giants for not heaving 
ofF the mountains under which they were buried, as at 



22 

the South for not breaking up, by a mighty earth- 
quake, the mountain of Slavery. 

To ask a man to do an impossible act and to abuse 
him in good round terms for not performing it, can- 
not be deemed very kind, whatever may be thought 
of its wisdom or morahty. That there are some 
pretty serious difficuhies in the way of Abohtion will 
not be questioned. What they are practically, may 
be in part imagined from considering what are the 
obstacles to our performing our own part in this great 
drama of christian duty. 

Suppose an enlightened morality should teach us 
to begin at home — to cut the connection with South- 
ern Slavery, and no longer to be participators in the 
stupendous fraud upon three milhons of suffering hu- 
man beings or felonious receivers of the annual in- 
terest of twelve hundred millions of dollars of plun- 
dered property. That an entire revolution in the 
commercial and manufacturing establishments would 
be the consequence, that bankruptcy, desolation and 
ruin would spread themselves over the country, that 
free labor would have little employment, that out of 
idleness and destitution would spring up a vast har- 
vest of pauperism and crime, and that in fact civiliza- 
tion would go backward, are to be denied only by the 
obstinacy of fanaticism. This certainly would be the 
effect of a sudden termination of our connection and 
participation in the guilt of Slavery. A more gradu- 
al separation would produce a less revulsion. But 
how can we trifle with conscience, and what has mo- 



23 

rality to do with consequences. When a man finds 
his conduct is criminal, he must stop at the instant. 
Such is the doctrine of AboUtionists, and such is the 
legitimate operation of the principles laid down by 
this letter. 

If these are the evils that beset our 'people in the 
path prescribed by " the rant and romance of a sub- 
limated and visionary morality," much greater would 
be the disasters that would attend abolition in the 
country where Slavery exists. Here the blow would 
fall upon property and there upon life. Sooner or 
later, in our judgment, the consequence w^ould be 
war, massacre and rivers of blood. We beheve firm- 
ly that two races could not exist as freemen under 
one government, and having convinced ourselves firm- 
ly of this fact, we look with abhorrence at the reck- 
lessness and audacity which, in the name of the 
Prince of Peace, and with the sanctions of a religion 
of perfect love, would institute a rash experiment on 
the happiness of mankind. 

We know indeed, to our own satisfaction, that the 
experiment will never be made, and this knowledge 
quiets our apprehensions ; but while misguided zeal- 
ots are preaching that it must be made, while " the 
rant and romance" of a mad philosophy is endeavor- 
ing to have it made, while christians and moralists 
are doing what they can to cause it to be made, and 
men of talents and influence are straining themselves 
to lead us by the perversion of our best affections to 
make itj there will and must be strife, conten- 



24 

tion, anger and revenge, the cause of humanity is ar- 
rested, true morality brought into discredit and the 
good will and brotherly kindness which are the foun- 
dations of national happiness, under such a govern- 
ment as ours, are sapped at their base. 

If Slavery is ever to end, it is not by these means. 
This letter writer but rivets the chains he would 
break, by the unskilful use of instruments which he 
does not understand. If an institution, which under 
the mysterious dispensation of Providence has existed 
since the world stood, is to cease before the world 
ends, Providence itself will indicate the w^ay. It 
may be by colonization which proceeds by the com- 
mon consent of master and slave — -it may be by some 
mode yet undiscovered by human reason and unre- 
vealed to christian prayers, but we are certain it is 
not to be consummated by making our world a Gol- 
gotha, turning our country to a desert, and piling up 
a monument to freedom of the commingled bones of 
the white man and the negro. 

The letter w^riter is not at all sensitive in re- 
gard to a dissolution of the Union. He has no fears 
on that score. He enumerates the many cohesive 
principles that bind the States together, and has no 
apprehension of their separation^ That is, he does 
not believe the South will secede. It may be " pas- 
sionate but not insane*" 

But he wholly forgets that the first duty of moral 
reformation is to begin himself the work of dissolu- 
tion. He must consent no longer to be a partner 



25 

in this iniquitous traffic. He must no longer be '' a 
jailer and constable over Slaves." He must refuse to 
join in a war against insurrection, and what is harder 
and more touching, he must taste not, handle not, 
come not near the blood-stained products of Slavery. 

Let the doctrines which Abolition contends for be 
inculcated on our own people to the extent and with 
the force which shall give it success, and the Consti- 
tution is already at an end. We may stand upon its 
ruins and exult at our moral triumphs, but the Union 
is already dissolved. Our hands will have torn down 
the star spangled banner and struck from the constel- 
lation every representative of a Slave holding State. 
What we shall have gained in this crusade of fanati- 
cism we shall learn by bitter experience. What we 
shall have lost is the last hope of freedom in the 
world. 

The rule of morality which we understand pre- 
scribes our course of action is this. 

If we find that by contract under the constitution, 
we are bound to aid and abet the South in maintain- 
ing the institution of Slavery, and have learned, since 
the constitution was adopted, that this institution is a 
wrong and a sin, and that as moral men, under a 
power above all constitution and human law, we can- 
not conscientiously any longer consent to aid and 
abet the institution, we are bound peaceably, quietly, 
but firmly in the exercise of our reserved rights, to 
propose the means and prepare the way for the disso- 
lution of that political government under which we 



26 

can no longer conscientiously live. Our first duty 
is to propose to our own people to cast off their 
unhallowed connection from men with whom we can- 
not conscientiously act, according to the existing 
terms of our contract and our bond. The writer of 
the letter before us has an easier path. 

The constitution enjoins a certain duty upon us in 
regard to run-away slaves. A law of Congress di- 
rects the mode of performing it. We agree with him 
that it connects us with Slavery. It has nevertheless 
been performed, as is admitted, by our best and wisest 
men in cases required by the constitution, with no self 
reproach. The letter writer pronounces them wrong- 
doers. He advises that it should be performed no 
longer. He goes for nullification in his own particu- 
lar case as all nuUifiers do. 

Compound for sins they are inclined to. 
By damning those they have no mind to. 

Again — we hold that true morality under the cir- 
cumstances exhibited in the letter, does not require 
us to interfere or give us the right of interfering with 
I the domestic relations of the South until we have first 
purified ourselves from all personal contamination 
With them. 

The case supposed in the letter is that we have 
discovered that Slavery is a wicked institution. It is 
a discovery recently made, or at least one to which 
our attention has been recently drawn. As moral 
men we are therefore bound no longer to uphold or 



27 

permit it. To deal in the products of Slave labor 
is to uphold and permit it. We are under no con- 
tract and no political obligation to deal in these pro- 
ducts. We have increased to an immense extent 
our demand for these products during our ignorance 
and delusion on the subject of Slavery. New lands 
have been planted, new States have been peopled, 
and the money we have paid for cotton has been ex- 
pended in the domestic Slave trade, in separating 
famihes, and in encouraging the breeding of Slaves. 
By our over demand, the value of Slaves in the 
United States which was in 1830 but five hundred 
million of dollars, has now increased to twelve hun- 
dred million. Our factories for the employment of 
this labor are scattered all over the country. We 
boast of them. Our Secretary of State has reported 
the investment of our capital in the State of Massa- 
chusetts alone to be about sixteen millions of dol- 
lars, and our annual dealing with one single article, 
the product of Slave labor, to be to the extent of 
seventeen millions more, and to employ the direct 
agency of twenty-one thousand citizens. Of the 
navigating interest concerned, we have an equal 
amount, and of the indirect connection which it has 
in every department of industry we can form no 
estimate. But this great amount is the wages of sin 
and iniquity. All this we offer to the monstrous 
Moloch of slavery. Our happiness is bound up in 
it. It is the prosperity and civilization of life as 
we have erroneously believed, but now we find it 



28 

is the deadly fruit in the garden of our Eden. We 
may partake of it, no more. 

The tremendous sacrifice thus demanded of us is 
nothing, absolutely nothing to that which we demand 
of our fellow citizens of the South. But we put it to 
the conscience of our own citizens and to the letter 
writer himself, whether we are not as much engaged 
in supporting Slavery as they are ; whether if we 
have discovered its sin and they have not, we can en- 
joy its profits and rail at them for not breaking it up ? 

The charge against the South and West is that 
they maintain a " criminal institution." 

We have said that where any thing is criminal, 
men must be answerable for it, as well the accessories 
as the principals. The charge therefore is brought 
against all the citizens of the United Slates except 
the Abolitionists, who are the ten righteous men that 
have hitherto saved the nation. 

Let us try this indictment against a whole people — 
that startling accusation for which Burke said the file 
afforded no precedent. 

A citizen of a Slave State comes by inheritance 
into the possession of Slaves. By the new doctrine, 
he must give them their liberty. He is otherwise a 
Slave holder and a felon ! 

But the act of emancipation is not every where 
and always in his own power. The policy of the 
Slave laws, in most of the States, admits it with many 
limitations. In some, a special legislative grant is re- 
quisite to a valid emancipation, as in Georgia, South 



29 

Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi. In others, the 
right to emancipation is made to depend on meritori- 
ous services done by the Slave, which are to be ad- 
judged upon by the County Court, as in North Caro- 
lina, and, it is believed, in Tennessee. Where more 
liberal power is possessed by the master, as in Ken- 
tucky, Maryland and Virginia, it is restrained by rules 
and regulations established for the purpose.* Slaves 
cannot be emancipated if they are wanted for pay- 
ment of debts, nor when they would become paupers. 
The State that has secured their services to the mas- 
ter, has bound him to obligations for their support. It 
has furnished no means of education for them, with- 
out which, liberty is a delusion^ and probably a curse. 
It has provided neither alms house nor hospital. 
The avenues of honest labor are in a great measure 
closed, and the gift of freedom, as it is pompously 
called, may often be consignment to poverty and 
wretchedness. With great differences in particular 
cases no doubt, the condition of the free negro is 
vastly more degrading, destitute and miserable in the 
Slave States than that of a plantation Slave. 

If under these circumstances, the individual white 
man, by holding the Slave, is guilty of a sin, it is the 

* James's Digest, 398. Prince's Digest, Act of ISO. Toulman'a 

Digest, 682. Mississippi R. C, 386. Haywood's Manuel, 525. 2 

Litt & Swi, 1155. 2 Missouri Laws, 744. 3 Hen Stat. 87. 1 Rev. 

Code Virginia, 433. Laws of Maryland, 1809, Ch. 171, of 1796, 

Ch. 67. 

3* 



30 

original sin of being born in a Slave country, which 
no efforts of his own can enable him to remove. 

Will it be said we only transfer the crime from the 
individual to the State? 

If indeed we have done so we have taken off that 
"brand,'^ which, according to Dr. C, is burned into 
the flesh of every individual Slave holder. It is no 
longer his own personal act which is sinful and 
against conscience, and for which he must be held up 
to detestation. It is the act of the government under 
which he lives. For this act he is reprehensible only 
so far as by his own personal conduct he can change 
it, or by any reasonable exertion of personal influence 
cause others to change it. 

Before he can be condemned by the justice of any 
human tribunal, and certainly before he can be con- 
victed of a breach of those laws, wdiich only God ad- 
ministers, it must appear that he is individually an- 
swerable for the existing condition of things, and that 
it would be safe, and prudent, and wise, and humane, 
and consistent with the best interests of all castes and 
classes to proclaim universal emancipation. 

If he is not answerable for the existing state of the 
law because he did not bring it about, and cannot 
change what is established ; or if by his exertions he 
might produce a change, but if such change how- 
ever productive of partial good, w ould in his honest 
judgment be on the whole, of most dangerous conse- 
quences^ he stands acquitted befor^ the Supreme Ru- 



31 

ler of the universe of all individual sin, and may de- 
spise the self appointed inquisitor who 

deals damnation round the land. 



On all he deems God's foe. 

We are brought back then to the great question of 
the moral duty of the South and West to destroy the 
institution of Slavery, and to the danger of this mighty 
revolution on both castes, the white man and the ne- 
gro, through all time and in all parts of our coun- 
try. 

We think this question is not to be flippantly 
settled by retired students in their study, on ab- 
stract principles without regarding practical effects, 
nor by women gathered from their domestic occupa- 
tions, whose little span of observation, places in the 
same relation the ability to mend stockings or make 
laws, nor least of all by that intemperate class, who 
have worked themselves into a passion in the cause 
of justice, and are furious and ferocious in maintaining 
quietness and peace. 

It is no small affair to change institutions which 
are coexistent with the settlement of the country, and 
it is a little rash and uncandid to denounce God's 
curse on a great people, because they cannot yet see 
by the light of this new philosophy. 

Let us be grateful that ^' curses kill notJ^ 

We do not propose to renew the discussion of this 
question. It has been sufficiently considered, and is 
presented by Mr. C. in his magnificent speech with 



32 

the pencil of genius, eloquence and truth. We de- 
sire to bring the discussion to some practicable issue. 

There are three insuperable objections to emanci- 
pation stated by Mr. Clay. 

1st. The amount of property which would be sac- 
rificed by emancipation. 

2d. The amalgamation of the races. 

3d. The civil wars, ending in the extermination 
of the one or the other race, which would follow 
abolition. 

We understand the replies given in the letter to 
the first of these objections to be these. 

1st. That there is no such property. 

2d. That what is supposed to be property would 
not be destroyed. 

3d. Admitting for arguments sake only, that there 
is such property now existing, and that it would be 
destroyed by emancipating the Slaves, that conse- 
quence is no just objection to emancipation. 

We shall consider each of these positions. 

As to the first, that " there is no such property." 

This is one of those splendid sophisms upon which 
nothing but genius could venture ; yet " as in religion 
there is no error but some sober brow will bless it, 
and approve it with a text," so is there no fact in 
history, and no truth in testimony, which in rashness 
or in ignorance may not be denied. 

Our author hears " with pain the doctrine too com- 
mon among lawyers^ that property is the creature of 
the law." 



33 

At the risk of renewing this unpleasant sensation, 
we repeat with Mr. Clay, what was said in substance 
by the writer of a former reply to Dr. Channing, 
"that is property which the law makes prop- 
erty." 

It is impossible to discuss or illustrate this question, 
as a matter of fact, but by an appeal to the Statute 
book and to the proceedings of Judicial Courts. 

In every government with which we have any ac- 
quaintance, Jewish, Grecian, Roman, Mahometan or 
Christian, the law has undertaken to decide by its 
own positive decree, what shall be property and what 
shall not be property ; — what shall be the tenure, 
title, and incidents of property, who may become its 
owners, and by what means, and by what artificial 
and political system it shall be transferred, alienated, 
inherited or lost. Because these matters are regulated 
in different countries by laws more or less different 
from each other, the character, incidents and security 
of property in difTerent countries are various, in the 
exact proportion of that difference. 

For a single example. Under the feudal system, all 
real estate w^as supposed to belong to the king, and 
to be held under him, and in the various modifica- 
tions of that system, it is now in England, held by 
the occupant under the king " as in fee," while with 
us, through the United States, it is wholly allodial. 

In one country certain specific articles are made 
incapable of being the property of an individual citi- 
zen, in others they are open to universal proprietor- 



34 

ship. Waifs, estrays, increments by alluvion, and num- 
erous others may be named, and among them the 
whole subject of monopoly, private jurisdictions, the 
game laws, &c. If there was any thing but the law, 
any thing above, beyond, or superior to the law, by 
which property could be determined, it would in all 
christian countries at least, result in the same thing. 

Look at the administration of this right of property. 
Wherever there is any law at all, it is administered 
by Courts of Justice, and these Courts undertake to 
decide the fact of property, to identify the owner, to 
determine the extent of his title and the amount of 
his right, and to vindicate his possession and secure 
it to him against all the world. They do this by 
reference to the Statute book and the law of the 
land. 

They do not give to a man his farm or his mer- 
chandize upon any abstract principle of justice or 
natural right, but because by the rules of human law, 
right or wrong, it is his. The law decrees it and the 
Court awards it. 

If there is any discrepancy between law and jus- 
tice, the property is adjudged to him who has law on 
his side, and he who has only justice is the losing 
party. 

Hence the complaints we hear very often, that a 
decision may be law but not justice, — a complaint 
too frequently made in ignorance of the fact. Law 
is intended to be the perfection of reason, and is so 
to the extent that human power can make it. So far 



35 

as it is what it intends to be, it is identical with perfect 
justice and moral right, but if in any case the law of 
man and the gospel of the Redeemer both unite in 
one result as to property and the ownership of property 
the possessor is in the enjoyment of it in our country, 
not by force of the Christian Religion but by the ex- 
press declaration of the law of man. 

The letter supposes that property has ''a natural 
foundation/' is ^'a natural right," "precedes all laws," 
'' is their ground, not their effect." 

This is mere rhapsody, — words without meaning, 
or at best an idle cavil about the import of terms. 

What do we mean by property ? The word im- 
plies something to be owned, and somebody to own 
it. An owner without property, or property without 
an owner, is nonsense. The word " property" imphes 
a subject matter and a person, and it is the relation and 
connection of the two that constitutes, to all practical 
and useful purposes, the idea of property, as it is en- 
tertained by rational men. That some of the subjects 
of property had a natural foundation and preceded 
the laws is true ; but in that condition of things such 
subjects were not property. 

The earth — the soil on which we stand, is a sub- 
ject of property, — the great foundation and source of 
all human property — and undoubtedly it existed be- 
fore man was created. But as there was nobody to 
own it, it was not property. So too our own country 
was in existence and occupied by rational beings be- 
fore it was discovered or planted by civilized man. 



36 

Whether it was the property of the Aborigines or 
not, and whether by natural right or not we leave 
casuists to determine. Our ancestors drove off the 
Indians, — as to our shame be it said we have done 
their descendants, — took the country into their own 
hands and parcelled it out by human law. Where 
they chose to pay the original proprietor, they allow- 
ed no individual to become the owner, but according 
to their own civilized laws ; and from that day the 
law of the land has established, and from time to 
time has altered, and in all respects controlled the 
property of the soil, and all other property of the in- 
habitants. 

Look at the subsequent power of alienation and 
succession. This is different in America from what it 
is in Europe — different in Great Britain and on the 
Continent — different in each of the United States in 
one or more important particulars. What makes 
these differences but the law of the land ? 

Let us go behind the original mode of acquisition 
and suppose an individual to be in possession of prop- 
erty by a natural right. May he by force of this right 
do what he pleases with it, or shall his pleasure be 
limited ? At his decease shall it go to his children or to 
such otlier persons as in his life-time he has desig- 
nated by his will ? One would think, if there was any 
natural right, it would permit a man to do what he 
pleased with his property as long as he lived, and that 
his children after him should enter into the enjoy- 
ment of it. Whether there be or be not any such 



37 

natural right is a subject of very useless inquiry, be- 
cause we know that in all countries, and in the Uni- 
ted States especially, to which our inquiries lead us, 
the law of the land rides over all such right and di- 
rects distribution by a set of positive, artificial rules, 
which have been changed again and again, as conve- 
nience, policy, or political interest requires, — so that 
the right, if there be one, is at last the creation of the 
law. 

We say then- that property is the creature of the 
law, because in point of fact the power of the law is 
the efficient power, which makes it what it is ; so 
that if theoretically there is any other power, it is 
dormant and imbecile, in the practical business of life. 

A more exact statement of what we mean, as prac- 
tical men, when we speak of property and law, may 
illustrate the subject of examination. 

For all practical purposes, by the word ^' prope7'ty^'' 
we mean that which a man uses, occupies, enjoys and 
possesses, and for the use, occupation, enjoyment and 
possession of which he may command, by proper ap- 
plication, the physical force of the community. 

We say property, so understood, is the creature of 
the law, because nothing but the law makes it what 
it is. 

Law is a modification of the physical force of so- 
ciety. It directs and it executes. It is the will of a 
power that commands, and has the means of making 
its commands obeyed. When this power directs a 
thing to be, the thing is. ^-^ 



38 

To say that the law does not do what we sec it 
constantly does do, and is doing, and will do, while 
the world stands, is either a paradox or a quibble. 

We may complain of the law as cruel, oppressive 
and unjust. When its rules are compared with the 
rules of the Gospel it may, in a given case, or by an 
individual opinion, deserve such epithets. But is it 
less an operative power ? To confound what ought 
to be law, and what is law, is a miserable confusion 
of intellect. 

Let us now transfer this doctrine to the immediate 
question before us. Slavery once existed in Massa- 
chusetts. Men were here purchased, sold, whipped 
and worked, as now they are in Kentucky, not so 
many indeed, but still there were slaves, men, women 
and children. 

Slavery was as truly an institution of New England 
as now it is of any of the Southern States. 

We may not be able to ascertain how it crept in, 
whether by force of any law that cannot be found, or 
by the universal custom prevailing through the Euro- 
pean colonies, in the West Indies, and on the conti- 
nent of America, or by the commercial policy of the 
parent State ; but we do know that Slavery was re- 
cognized as existing in fact, and various regulations 
were prescribed in reference to it, and among them a 
restriction on the master's power to emancipate his 
Slaves. 

We know now, and we desire to express our grat- 
itude for the fact, Slavery does not exist. 



39 

Why ? Because it is abolished by law. The first 
judicial decision about it in Massachusetts, after the 
revolution, announced that Slavery was abolished by 
force of the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. 

Christianity could not abolish it ; no system of 
morals proprio Vigore could abolish it. Christianity 
and morality might operate on the law makers, but 
it was after all the act and not the motive of the law- 
giver that gave freedom to oppressed humanity. 

It w^as urged indeed by the Attorney General of 
Massachusetts, in his argument against Kneeland in- 
dicted for Blasphemy, for whose pardon after con- 
viction, Dr. C. was the leading petitioner, that Chris- 
tianity was part and parcel of the common law of 
Massachusetts, and that the morality of the gospel 
was the law of the land. This opinion is sustained 
by the very general concurrence of the legal profes- 
sion, but it was opposed by all the free-inquirers of 
the country. Nobody supposed that without the 
operation of human law, as distinct and separate from 
any other power, penalties could be enforced or rights 
maintained in civil society. The question was whether 
the law-makers had made the christian morality the 
law of the land. 

Once more. What dissolved Slavery in the West 
Indies ? " In one day half a million, probably 700,000 
of human beings were rescued from bondage to full, 
unqualified freedom." What power accomplished this 
magnificent work ? An act of the British Parliament. 
A piece of parchment that had passed through certain 



40 

forms and was thus the evidence of the will of the 
government. The dissolution of Slavery was efiected 
by the giant power of the law. And what are all 
these Abolition petitions which are crowded upon 
Congress but a demand upon the legislature of the 
country to change the law which makes one man a 
Slave to another ? 

The right of a man to be free may exist upon natu- 
ral foundations, but the law overturns these founda- 
tions and the right is worthless. Property in man 
may by moral principles be theoretically impossible, 
but human law works the impossibility by a miracle 
and the natural right is trampled in the dust. The 
property which morals and principle and nature do 
not and cannot create, is in effect, by right or by 
wrong, created by law. 

The letter writer has some objections to this doc- 
trine which we will briefly examine, premising that the 
fact and the reason of it are necessarily distinguishable 
considerations. " Government," it is said, " was or- 
dained not to create but to protect and regulate prop- 
erty," but we answer that before it can regulate a 
subject, it must define and determine what it is. 

'' Its chief strength lies in the sanction which the 
moral sense, the natural idea of right gives to honest- 
Iv earned possessions." Admit it. Men have an idea 
of what government ought to do and their respect 
and regard is conciliated by the doing of it. If gov- 
ernments always did their duty, all governments 
would be alike. But the duty is one thing, the dis- 



41 

charge of it another. What the government does, 
not what we think it ought to do ; is the rule to which 
its citizens must submit so long as the government 
stands and is in fact a government. 

" If we of this Commonwealth have no right to our 
persons^ houses, ships, farms, but what a vote of the 
Legislature or the majority confers, then a vote of the 
same masses may strip us of them all and transfer 
them to others and the right will go with the law." 

The writer considers a vote of the Legislature as 
making the law. He does not understand that the 
Constitution is the Supreme law of the land, and that 
until this law is changed it secures to every man the 
enjoyment of the property to which he has by the 
law of the land honestly acquired a title. Cases do 
indeed occur to which the Constitutional protection 
does not extend. We then see, even here, that natur- 
al right is no protector of property against law. The 
property in the franchise of Charles River Bridge was 
created by law, and is destroyed by law. 

I do not see— says the writer—" why the law can- 
not make some idle neighbor the rightful owner of 
your property or mine." Let him read our Constitu- 
tion and he will find out. No such law can be made 
until a revolution shall break down all the defences 
against the Radicalism and Agrarianism of the day. 

The writer charges the advocates of this doctrine 
with being the most dangerous of all radicals " per- 
haps." They become so then by being advocates for 

4* 



42 

the truth. But he is out of his element as much in 
poUtics as law. 

Let him establish property, or the right to property 
on any thing but law, on natural right or a sublime 
morality, and to how much more or less than he 
now possesses would he limit his title. Who and 
how many would contest it with him ? Where and 
how is the right to be settled ? Where is the text 
and the administrator by which partition is to be 
made? When some "idle neighhot'^ "of the poor 
majority" without law shall step into his mansion — 
set down on his soft sofa — bathe himself in his costly 
essences and feed at his luxurious table, what shall 
determine the natural right between the possessor of 
the purple and fine linen for half a century, and the 
Lazarus that claims them. He is " perhaps^^ no true 
Republican, who ventures to place the right of prop- 
erty on any thing but the law. 

But may he not be a good moralist ? " If that is 
property which the law declares to be property then" 
according to the letter " human law is made supreme, 
decisive in a great question of morals. Thus the idea 
of an eternal immutable justice is set at nought." 
This is another instance of false reasoning. Who 
but man is to decide what is eternal immutable jus- 
tice ? The law is the expression of that decision by 
tlie community in which it is made. Repubhcanism 
presumes that the people are honest and intelligent. 
They therefore may be entrusted to make the law, 
and of course a law so made by such a people will 



43 

not set at nought eternal immutable justice, but strict- 
ly accord with it. When the people are corrupt or 
ignorant there is among them no longer any law or 
government, right, justice or morality. There is either 
Rebellion or Anarchy. Is it a question whether a 
given law does or does not consist with natural right 
or with eternal immutable justice ? The majority of 
the people must decide it. ,^\ 

It is when fanatics or disorganizers undertake to \\ 
settle this question for themselves that we have mobs, 
riots and Lynch law. Thus the law of the State 
authorized the building the Hall of Freedom in Phila- 
delphia. But a mob deemed it to be devoted to a 
cause inconsistent with their ideas of natural justice 
and ihey " levelled it to the earth by fire." Thus too 
the law of Massachusetts authorized freedom of con- 
science and religious toleration, but a mob deemed 
these privileges, when enjoyed by the Catholics of 
Mount Benedict, to be a violation of eternal justice, 
and they too levelled the Convent to the earth by fire. 

In getting upon the subject of riots and insurrec- 
tion, the writer seems to forget what he has been say- 
ing against the force of human law. 

Here he remarks with great truth, '' the sovereign- 
ty has here but one mode of manifestation, and that 
is the laws. It can express itself in no other way ; 
and consequently a mob in forcibly suspending the 
laws and in substituting its own will for that which 
the legitimate organs of the people have proclaimed 



44 

usurps for a time the sovereignty of the State and is 
virtually in rebellion." 

But the law that sustained the Hall of Freedom 
and the Convent of the Ursulines, was a law that es- 
tablished and maintained the right of property. It 
was a law by Pennsylvania and Massachusetts in 
effect declaring that liberty of speech should be al- 
lowed to the Abolitionists, and freedom and religious 
worship to the Catholics, and that each might build 
and maintain establishments for this purpose. With 
the pretence and perhaps a belief that these objects 
as they were or would be conducted, were morally 
wrong, that the owners were wrong-doers, " not only 
justifying but commanding the opposition of all good 
men," the rioters acted out practically all these theo- 
ries on the right of property, which are broached in 
the letter before us. They paid no regard to the 
human law when it came across their designs. They 
treated the law of two sovereign States precisely as 
this letter writer treats the laws of the fourteen Slave 
holding States, and perpetrating in fact what he only 
illucidates in argument, they acted as they might 
have done if property was not the creature of the 
law, they took the law for a nullity and burned up 
the buildings. 

We have already alluded to the letter writer's re- 
spect for the law when its provisions do not meet his 
own particular notions. The Citizen who thinks it 
wrong *' must abstain from what he deems wrong." 
What is this but to allow every individual to be his 



45 

own judge of his duty and obligation, and to obey or 
dioobey, as he choses for himself? When such a 
principle is avowed, it is clear that submission in no 
case proceeds from respect to the law itself, or to the 
authority by which it is made. Reformers of every 
class may then proceed by an impulse of their own, 
and there is no difference in conduct, — except as to 
the subjects of resistance, — between a Christian Cler- 
gyman and a Radical Rioter ! / 

Miss Martineau in her Martyr age alluding to the 
sufferings of the Abolitionists, says that " the Attorney 
General of Massachusetts gave " advice to the Gov- 
ernor in Council that any Abolitionists demanded by 
the South should be delivered up for trial under 
Southern laws, (the sure result of which is known to 
be death.") 

The whole statement is absolutely false, but the 
abolition press without inquiry, on the mere allegation 
of this intrusive stranger, has rung with its horror and 
alarm. Suppose it was true, how does it differ from 
the admitted and avowed declaration of Dr. Chan- 
ning ? The law officer of the Commonwealth gives a 
wrong construction to constitutional law and advises 
the performance of a duty which, by such construc- 
tion would be obligatory. The Reverend Clergyman 
adopts a right construction of the law, and deliber- 
ately determines not to obey its admitted command. 

But it may be asked is there no limit to the power 
of the law in our country ? 

Unquestionably there are certain acts which the 



/ 



46 

law cannot do, as that word law is understood in its 
popular sense. We admit that no ex post facto act 
of the State or Federal Government can punish a 
citizen. We admit that no law can destroy or impair 
the obligation of contracts, make a man a judge in 
his own case, or give the property of A to B without 
compensation, or do any thing which is against the 
great first principles of the social compact ; and the 
reason that the law cannot do these things is simply 
because no law authorizing them can be made. 

The common expression that the law cannot do it, 
raises a vague and confused idea. It is more correct 
to say no law can be made purporting to do these 
things, and therefore the law never does do it. 

When the idea expressed by the popular phrase is 
put into the precision of legal language we learn 
what it means from the authority of the Supreme 
Court of the United States. 

That high judicatory says " There are acts which 
the Federal or State Legislatures cannot do without 
exceeding their authority." 

" An act of the Legislature contrary to the great 
first principles of the social compact cannot be con- 
sidered a rightful exercise of authority." 

" To maintain that our Federal or State Legisla- 
tures possess such powers would be a political heresy 
altogether inadmissible in our free republican govern- 
ment."* 

We adopt no such heresy. We agree that an act 

*Dall. Rep. 3d V. p. 388. 



41 

of the Federal or State Legislature, which exceeds 
its authority, is void. 

If the acts declaring and enforcing Slavery are of 
this description, then no Slavery is established. How 
are we to decide this question ? When an act has 
passed all the forms of legislation, we have no mode 
of ascertaining whether it is vahd or invalid, but 
through the judiciary. We do not leave this matter 
to Dr. Channing or Mr. Clay, but to the sworn ex- 
pounders of the law. 

Now the Legislatures of the Slave States have es- 
tablished Slavery by acts of legislation. The courts 
of the United States and the State courts, not only in 
the Slave States, but without one solitary dissentient 
throughout the whole country, have decided that the 
acts of legislation, in this particular, do not exceed 
their authority and are valid, and therefore we affirm 
that in this case, they have established the property ; 
and if in this case a fortiori in all others, "property 
is the creature of the law," for '' what the law makes 
property is property." 

The letter writer thinks he has Mr. Clay on the hip 
in this, that in urging the wrong which would be 
done to the Slave holders, should the law strip them 
of their Slaves, he acknowledges that law is not a 
supreme rule of right, for if it were, " with what face 
could they complain of being wrongfully dispos- 
sessed." 

But our author is undei* a mistake. Mr. Clay ap- 
peals to a sense of justice to control the law-makers. 



48 

for which there would be no occasion if the law did 
not regulate property. As the law now stands, ac- 
cording to Mr. Clay's argument, the master has a 
property in his Slave. If the law was altered, as the 
Abolitionists would have, he admits the master would 
have no such property, because property is the 
creature of the law. But he says the master should 
be indemnified for this loss, and he appeals to a sense 
of justice to secure this compensation. It is evident 
that the law might abolish the property and not pro- 
vide a compensation, because property in the right 
to compensation, as in the Slave, is created by the law. 

We have thus endeavored to illustrate our position 
that property is the creature of the law, by showing 
that law makes it, designates it, assigns it, protects it 
as far as it is protected, and does in fact do all and 
every thing by which property has its distinguishing 
and distinctive character. 

We have not said that the law does this upon the 
principles of eternal and immutable justice. It would 
puzzle a wiser philosopher than our author to look 
around upon the community and determine upon 
what principle of justice, he or any other individual is 
a rich man, while " the majority are poor." But we 
deal with the fact. We maintain that for all practi- 
cal purposes " that is property which the law makes 
property," and that he is the owner of property whom 
the law has designated as the owner of property ; 
that what ought to be done may be one thing, and 
what is done is another ; — that in locking at society, 



49 

as it is, the law which designates what shall be prop- 
erty and appoints the owner of property, is the high- 
est sanction which man can know or observe in re- 
spect to it, and that while it is his duty to make his 
laws conform to eternal justice and natural right, so 
far as he can understand what that is, yet whether in 
the judgment of individuals they do so or not, they 
are the only standard by which human right to prop- 
erty is or can be established or ascertained by human 
beings. 

But it is said, however this may be generally, yet 
there are some things which the law cannot make prop- 
erty. This must evidently be a quibble about words. 
If it was said there are some things which the law 
ought not to make property, the assertion might be 
true. If it be said that our notion of justice, morality 
or honor, forbid us to make some things property, no 
man would deny the allegation. When we have 
settled what we mean by property, the sophistry of 
the objection is apparent. 

If the law maker has the physical power to place a 
thing, animate or inanimate, in such a condition that 
it has and possesses all the incidents of property, if he 
can assign a person to act as owner to it, regulate the 
authority of such owner, subject him to duties and 
obligations, and secure to him benefits and advan- 
tages, in consequence of his assumed ownership ; — -if 
to the extent of the jurisdiction of such law maker, he 
can enforce all the relations so established, and does 
do all this in the form of a law, and by the sovereign 

6 



50 

power of the State, the thing, whether animate or in- 
animate, human or brute, is for all essential purposes 
property. 

To argue that the law does not make an article 
property, because in our estimation it ought not to 
have made it property, is as sensible as to say that an 
act of homicide is not murder, because murder is a 
crime, or an act of larceny is no violation of property 
because to violate property is immoral. 

We suppose it is not necessary to protest that the 
idea of moral right and the fact in any given case may 
be different things ; and yet knowing the tendency 
of a certain party to misrepresent our language we 
do again even to tediousness repeat the distinction. 

The letter writer as constantly confounds them. 
''As a man" — he says — " is physically unable to turn 
the sun and air into private possessions, so he is morally 
incompetent to turn his fellow creatures into chattels." 
This is an instance of the exceeding indistinctness of 
his ideas on this subject, and is equally unfortunate as 
an illustration. 

Chattels are only another name for a species of 
property, a mere legal distinction, having no more to do 
with moral law than the genera and species of Linnceus, 
which he arranged by a system and nomenclature of his 
own. It is not morally or physically competent to 
man to change the nature of any thing, but he may 
change its relations and connections with other things 
and other men. It is the relation that constitutes 
property. This is consummated by the law of the 



51 

land. When the relation is established, property is 
established, and all the moral law has to do with it is 
to teach and enjoin upon us not to disturb that rela- 
tionship for any purposes of our own. We may not 
steal it as some moralists advise us to do. We may 
not covet it, nor destroy it when it does not belong 
to us. 

Thus it is that men do turn the sun and air into 
private possessions so that to take more than a fair 
share of the one or to deteriorate the other, are under 
certain circumstances the violation of a right of in- 
dividual property in those common gifts of nature, as 
our author will find if before he meddles with the 
law again he will read some elementary treatise. 

After a page or two of illustration to show that the 
general end for which legislation touches property is 
to make it more secure, he rather as a non sequiter 
concludes " There are then principles of property 
which no law can move." He specifies none. The 
fundamental laws of the country, its written or un- 
written constitution, regulate all principles of property 
and govern the whole affair. Parliament, Congress, 
the French Chambers, our Legislature are not Su- 
preme. There is a Constitution behind, which Hmits 
the law makers. This Constitution is the Supreme law. 
With us of the United States it recognizes the legis- 
lation of the Representatives of the people, and their 
entire supremacy over every thing under its direction. 

If any thing but the law of the land makes prop- 
erty to be property, ascertains the right of property 



52 

and determines such right, what is it ? Is it re- 
Hgion, or morality ? Is it justice — natural right, 
private industry, personal merit? We know in 
point of fact it is the sealed deed and the opera- 
tion and force of law upon the instrument, which 
establishes a man's property in his farm. We know 
it is the law of inheritance and not the character of 
the heir, which secures the succession. To substitute 
any other inquiries than those provided by positive 
law would throw every thing into the wind. The 
law must indeed proceed upon general principles, and 
often, according to our personal opinions works injus- 
tice and wrong. But over all our scruples it rides 
triumphantly. 

The argument we are reviewing is pressed further. 
It is said the law cannot establish property in that 
which by moral principle and eternal justice is not 
liable to become property. In other words " that man 
cannot be rightfully seized and held as property." 
This proposition Mr. Clay pronounces to be a vision- 
ary dogma. Dr. C. says it is nevertheless the truth. 
Now that man is seized and made property is un- 
questioned. The dispute therefore must turn upon 
the word " right fully, ^^ Whether an act be right or 
wrong is to be measured by some standard or rule. If 
the rule be the law of the land then what is lawful is 
right, and what is done according to law is rightfully 
done. If the rule be the law of God, the principles 
of morality, the fitness of things or sense of justice, 
and if tins rule differs from the rule established by the 



53 

law of the land, then every body will admit that un- 
less the act is conformable to the law of God it is 
not a rightful act, although it may be a lawful one. 
Upon this admission it is evident that when the law 
of God and the law of man agree, an act that it is 
lawful is right, when they disagree the higher of the 
two laws must decide, and an act is not right unless 
it be according to the will of God. 

But who is to decide whether the command of the 
civil law is nullified by the law of God ? 

There is but this alternative. Each man in his own 
case must decide for himself, or society must decide 
for all. The supreme power of the State must ex- 
press the general will, by which all its citizens are 
bound, or each citizen according to his own conven- 
ience or his own fancy must determine for himself. 

Is it not at once seen that unless this right of de- 
cision rest in the constituted authorities of the State, 
all government is dissolved, that the buisness of life 
could not go on, that society must come to a stand 
still, — and anarchy and confusion hold a jubilee for- 
ever ? 

Is it not perceived that when a man sets up his 
own individual opinion as the rule of right, against 
the law of the land, he opposes the opinion and judg- 
ment of others, who may be quite as conscientious in 
their opinion as he is_in his own. It is impossible 
that both sets of opinions can prevail, and it must be 
the minority or the majority that is to rule in the last 
resort. He may think his position perfectly impreg- 

5* 



54 

nable, so do they. He may find demonstration in 
his argument ; so do they. He may be astonished at 
their bhndness, they are surprised at his. 

Take this very case of Slavery. Dr. C. thinks 
man is morally incompetent to turn his fellow crea- 
tures into chattels. Mr. Clav treats this doctrine as a 
visionary dogma. 

Who shall decide when doctors disagree ? 

Dr. Channing brings to his aid the Anti Slavery 
Society and all New England. Mr. Clay arranges on 
his side the clergymen of the South and millions of 
laymen. 

The practical operation of society is to condense 
public opinion, not to make men think alike, but to 
ascertain the general will and make men submit to it. 

The law, when established, is as precise and exact 
as any thing human can be. The interpretation of 
conscientious dissentients, is as visionary and various 
as their numbers. 

What would that blasphemer, whose pardon Dr. 
C. solicited, say to a rule of action founded on the 
will of God, when lie denies the existence of a moral 
governor of the Universe ? What becomes of moral 
principle independent of the will of a Supreme Be- 
ing? Is it Owen, Fanny Wright, or the Mormons, — 
the followers of the elect Lady, our Agrarians, Radi- 
cals, or Jack Cades, who are to settle the right by 
justice to the possession of property ? 

Their ideas of justice are very different from each 



55 

other, and all of them equally distant from the estab- 
lished rules of law. 

What is to be the right of property under that con- 
scientious class of philosophers who honestly maintain 
that no christian " can consistently sue a man at law, 
or acknowledge allegiance to any human govern- 
ment ?" 

The law of the land is then, as we contend, the 
best interpretation of the moral and divine law, be- 
cause it unites the opinion of the majority in its fa- 
vor, and because all our systems of government are 
founded on this presumption that the law as promul- 
gated is the only safe and practicable standard for as- 
certaining a right when such right is contested. 

But this theory does not militate with our position. 
We speak of the fact. Property— whether we regard 
the article — the owner — or the claim of right — is what 
it is, by force of the law, and not by theoretical ab- 
straction. 

" What is to be done," it is asked, "if the law vio- 
lates our conscience ?" The answer is easy. A citi- 
zen who will not submit to the law must resist it or 
fly. We go for the right of revolution as our fathers 
did, when circumstances demand it, as we go for the 
right of war, in those awful emergencies when it is 
required for national honor or necessary self defence, 
and we scout that sublimated morality which, under 
proper circumstances, cannot ask and expect heaven's 
blessing upon both. 

Whatever might have been the theory of property 



56 

in that fanciful state of things which is supposed to 
have preceded the formation of civil society and hu- 
man government^ since these were established prop- 
erty, is the result of a political and not a moral right. 
Dr. Paley very sensibly remarks — '' We speak of 
property in land, for the land was once no doubt 
common and so appropriated to the first owner, and 
the question is how any part of it could be taken out 
of the common and so appropriated to the first owner 
as to give him a better right to it than others, and 
what is more a right, to exclude all others from it." 
And he concludes in these words, ^' the real founda- 
tion of our right is the law of the land." 

The substitution of any other foundation is the 
work of that new philosophy which adopts the theo- 
retical for the practical ; — that Transendentalism 
which places the ideal above the actual, and de- 
ranges the conduct as well as the faith of the world. 
We see it every where in the dreamy mysticism of 
imaginative minds. But wherever it is seen, it is 
the same appaling heresy, whether it is conveyed in 
the polluted pages of convicted Blasphemy or the 
pohshed periods of classical composition. It is every 
where the same subtle person, whether alluring a del- 
icate taste in the disguise of a French cordial, or so- 
liciting a vulgar appetite in streams " warm from the 
still and faithful to its fires." 

Under a sense of their deep responsibility to God 
and man our fellow citizens of the South and West 
have established the institution of Slavery by force of 



57 

law. We personally deem it a great evil. We re- 
gret and deplore the existence of it. We lament the 
condition of things which seems to them to war- 
rant and require it. We hope in the course of Provi- 
dence a way will be opened for its extinction. We 
sympathize as truly as the most sensitive Abolitionist 
in the moral and physical degradation of the Slave, 
and we extend our sympathy to those who have the 
misfortune to be his masters. We are profoundly 
grateful that no such institution exists here. 

But we oppose any interference of the kind at- 
tempted in this letter and the works of the Abolition- 
ists, until we shall put ourselves in a condition honestly 
to make such interference, by surrendering our Consti- 
tution and the Union of the States, and assuming a 
separate government which shall leave us free for 
pohtical action, and until we shall have voluntarily 
abandoned that direct encouragement of Slavery, 
which we practice for our own pecuniary advantage. 
If we are not ready to make these sacrifices moral 
duty imposes silence. 

We further oppose all interference at this time be- 
cause it is calculated to prolong rather than shorten 
the evils it proposes to remedy, and introduces false 
principles of action subversive of all law and order 
and tending to destroy the foundations of society. 

Let us now turn to some of those considerations 
by which the governments of the South and West as- 
sume the right of maintaining the Institution of Slave- 
ry, that we may determine how far under the circum- 



58 

stances of their position they are obnoxious to such 
degree of reprehension as renders it our duty to hold 
them up to the reprobation of the world, and to pro- 
pose that tremendous revolution which even if peace- 
ably accomplished would change the condition of the 
country. 

Let us consider this matter temperately, remember- 
ing that though the judgment may to some extent 
be influenced by the feelings, it can never properly be 
overwhelmed by them. 

" A Slave is one who is in the power of another to 
whom he belongs." Civ. Code Lous. Art. 35 & 173. 

All human government is to some extent a restraint 
on the actions and will of its subjects, and as it is in- 
seperable from government the right of imposing it is 
not decisive by practical and intelligent men. We 
give the name of Slavery to the exercise under the 
authority of government, of this restraint to an extreme 
degree by one man or one set of men over another. 

The first article of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights 
declares that all men have certain natural, essential 
and unalienable rights, among which may be reckon- 
ed the right of enjoying and defending their lives and 
liberties — that of acquiring, possessing and protect- 
ing property, in fine that of seeking and obtaining 
their safety and happiness. 

Yet government is established for the very purpose 
of restraining, regulating, controlling and in some ca- 
ses destroying their declared rights. It takes life and 
liberty by its established laws, it restrains the acqui- 



e 



9 



sition and possession of property when it sees fit to 
do so, it prevents a man from protecting his property 
except in a manner indicated by law, and it refuses 
its permission to a man to seek and obtain his own 
safety and happiness, if his inchnation leads him to 
find it in a mode not recognized to be right. 

It declares that all men are born free and equal. 
But the moment of their birth is the last moment of 
absolute freedom or perfect equality. In all the rela- 
tions of child, apprentice, pupil, wife, soldier, sailor, 
and indeed in all others, the natural and physical lib- 
erty of the individual citizen is restrained by the law. 
Slavery is the extending of this restraint to the ex- 
treme, and hence he is the only true Abolitionist who 
goes for entire freedom from all human government. 
All power over, or property in a Slave is of the same 
kind as that which the father has in and over his 
child, the husband over his wife, the artizan over his 
apprentice, the naval or military man over his enlist- 
ed soldier or sailor, differing in degree but not at 
all in character or principle. Now the extent to 
which this power shall be carried must be deter- 
mined by the government itself. 

If the government has a right to do any thing, it 
must have the right to decide how much it will do, 
and to what extent it will go ; and a free and an ab- 
solute government is distinguished by nothing else 
but the limitation it puts upon its own powers. Is it 
said government may impose these restrains so far as 
they are authorized by the law of God and morality ? 



60 

Government must decide for itself what God and 
good morals authorize it to do. Is it said that it 
may go only so far as necessity or the common good 
requires ? Again we answer that it must judge for 
itself what this necessity and this common good de- 
mands. And this is precisely the point to which 
both we of Massachusetts and our fellow citizens of 
the Slave holding States have come. We had Slaves 
in Massachusetts, and we determined that in our con- 
dition and circumstances, the just principles of moral- 
ity and the common good demanded of us to give 
them freedom. It was done. Our Southern breth- 
ren would, we doubt not, most gladly find themselves 
in a condition to do the same thing. They are sur- 
rounded and filled up by this same population. It 
has entered into all their connections. It has con- 
tinued for centuries. It is not the scaftblding but 
the very foundation stones of their society. They 
consider that the colored race has not at present a 
disposition for voluntary labor nor a capacity for free- 
dom ; that their ill regulated passions would make it 
a curse to them instead of a blessing ; that the two 
races could not live under one government ; that an 
attempt to change the condition of the servile class, 
would produce war and bloodshed, dissoluteness, pov- 
erty and ruin ; they therefore determine that morality 
and the common good demand of them not to give 
them freedom. It is therefore not done. They con- 
sider themselves entitled to decide this grave ques- 
tion, and they deny that the power of a sovereign 



61 

State over its subjects can be rightfully controlled. 
For the exercise of their duty in this respect, they hold 
themselves responsible only to God. 

If the facts are admitted, the decision they have 
m^de must be deemed proper. If the consequences 
of Abolition would be the extinction of one or the 
other race, who would propose it ? Even our author 
admits that " bad as Slavery is, Massacre would be 
far worse." 

The right to decide is with them, morally and politi- 
cally, — and the correctness of their decision must be 
determined by the true state of the facts and a cor- 
rect estimate of probable consequences. 

Dr. C. yields the whole argument, not unadvisedly 
we presume, when he says " The Legislature may 
place the colored race under guardianship — may im- 
pose such restraints as the public order shall require, 
and may postpone the full enjoyment of personal 
liberty even to the next generation." p. 50. 

Whence is their right to do this ? The law of self- 
preservation gives the right. They may impose this 
restriction for a whole generation and defer for the 
life of a great majority of those, now in being, the 
unalienable and inestimable right of freedom, if they 
do truly and honestly believe this delay would promote 
the cause of humanity and the common good. Why 
may they not enforce private ownership on the same 
principles ? If the Legislature has any right to exer- 
cise its discretion, by what is this right limited ? Are 
the Abolitionists or their own intelligent men, laity 



62 

and clergy, statesmen and civilians and jurists, to de- 
cide on the extent of this discretion ? 

Slavery, let it be remembered is not the less wrong 
in principle because it is more or less severe in its 
operation. '' The hostility is to the system, not pri- 
marily on the physical agonies it inflicts, but on its 
flagrant injustice and the misery necessarily involved 
in a system of wrong." p. 31. 

If therefore there is no right in the South to estab- 
lish Slavery there is no right to '^ postpone the full 
enjoyment of liberty." The reasons that would justi- 
fy the one, would in a certain condition of things justify 
the other. With this etherial doctrine of right expe- 
diency has no connection. To postpone the enjoy- 
ment of a right, is to do a great wrong ; — to do it for 
a generation, is to keep the present one in Slavery for 
life. If the system is against the law of God under 
all possible circumstances then Dr. C.'s proposition 
involves an act of injustice and sin. If there are 
any circumstances under which the system may be 
right, then the government of the country must be 
the exclusive judge whether such circumstances do or 
do not exist. 

We come then to this result, that power over and 
property in the lives, liberty and estate of its own 
citizens is to some extent possessed by every consti- 
tuted government, and that by virtue of this power 
all governments do dispose of the life, the liberty and 
the property of their citizens. That the danger of an 
unreasonable exercise of this power is guarded against 



63 

by constitutions of government and fundamental laws, 
which limit the power in the hands of those who ex- 
ercise it. That there is no danger of an abuse of this 
right when the people are sovereign as they are with 
us, because under our free constitutions the legisla- 
tive and executive departments cannot carry the ex- 
ercise of this power beyond the exigency of the case ; 
but of this exigency the people of the country or the 
government of the country, the supreme power in the 
last resort, must be the exclusive judge. 

Such judgment decides under these circumstances 
what is the moral right and the necessity of the case. 
We can reverse it only by appealing downward from 
the mass to the individual, and obtaining a counter 
judgment by the minority. 

We are particularly desirous on this point not to 
be misunderstood. We do not assert that the judg- 
ment of the government of a country can make an 
action morally right or wrong at its pleasure. Every 
action is morally right or wrong as it conforms to the 
will of heaven. But we maintain that the govern- 
ment is a better interpreter of that will than any in- 
dividual citizen, and that it is safer to be governed by 
the will of the government, in such cases, than by that 
of an individual citizen. There will be eminent men 
on both sides of the question. The true Pope only 
is infallible — Protestant Popes claim to be, but cannot 
maintain their assumption. 

By government, it is to be understood, we mean, not 



64 

the agents of the people, but the people themselves. 
It is their decree to which we submit. — 
Vox POPULi vox Dei. 

Suppose the contrary theory is true. Look at it. 
Moral law in no condition of things gives man a 
property in human beings. 

Human law can in no condition of things establish 
property in human beings. 

Then there is no such property in the master of 
Slaves. 

But he exercises the power of ownership. 

This is power without right. Power without right 
authorizes resistance to any extent necessary to re- 
move it. 

Private assassination and open murder are among 
the means necessary to remove it. 

But private assassination and open murder are not 
means enough. 

Insurrection and servile war are necessary for this 
purpose. 

Insurrection and war are therefore lawful. 

Hence in the pursuit of an abstract right war and 
all the crimes it occasions are made the lawful minis- 
ters of Abolition. 

We come now to the second answer which is 
That giving freedom to Slaves would not destroy 
the property of their masters. This is maintained by 
a process of such ingenious fallacy that we shall not 
spare the time and space to refute it. 



65 



Then it is said that if this be property, the destruc- 
tion of it would be no reason against Abohtion. This 
is another of those charitable, humane and magnificent 
theories, which speculative philosophers indulge in 
and cherish, as we suppose, for its utility. In the pre- 
sent condition of things there is a certain amount of 
human happiness and human sufiering. Whether it 
would be more or less after the new process should 
have had its perfect work, we may perhaps learn 
from the example of St. Domingo. 

Let us proceed now to consider very briefly the 
answer to the third objection to Emancipation before 
we proceed to the one preceding it. 

Mr. Clay tells us " that Emancipation will stir up 
the two races to a war which nothing but the Slavery 
or extermination of one or the other will end." 

We remark here that this is a perfectly sufficient 
objection if it be founded in truth, and of course its 
truth is denied by Dr. Channing. 

Secondly, we remark that a decision of it is strictly 
within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Slave States. 

Third, that if they believe it to be true — whether 
it be true or not — which ultimate fact can only be 
known on an experiment, they are justified in not 

making the experiment. 

Fourth, that all that we of the North can lawfully 
do, is to inquire whether they do believe this assertion 
to be true, or whether they put it forth colorably as a 
pretence to mask their own cupidity and deceive the 
world. 



6* 



66 

This inquiry is undoubtedly open to us. The 
civihzed world sets in judgment on the actions and 
motives of States and men, and will not permit a 
grievous wrong under a false assumption of pretended 
causes of justification. 

Of the enormous evils of Slavery no stronger opin- 
ion can be entertained any where than in the States 
where it is established. But he is a poor moralist 
who contents himself with displaying the miseries of 
Slavery or war. Abolition has its evils too, and so 
has peace. It would not puzzle an ingenious man to 
make a beautiful lecture on the disasters produced by 
gravitation. 

Emancipation is unquestionably the duty of the 
Southern governments unless it will in their judgment 
occasion vastly more evil than good. 

Now, as we have before said, it is not within our 
plan to argue this question over again, but to place 
the true points of the controversy in the possession of 
our readers. We believe in the honesty of the Slave- 
holders when they tell us that two castes cannot live 
under one government on terms of equality. We be- 
lieve the fact that Abolition is but another name for 
Massacre. I 

We have read the ^' six months tour," — which some 
Abolition friend was kind enough to send us — and 
we come to conclusions of a very painful kind. It is 
yet to be seen whether Antigua, Barbadoes and 
Jamaica are not to be like St. Domingo. We are 
yet to learn whether the white man is to be expelled 



67 

from his plantation, and the islands themselves be- 
come mere sand banks on the ocean, desolate and 
deserted, or inhabited only by pirates. They who 
look at the Negro as he is, despoiled by Slavery of 
the spirit of a man, see only a crouching, abject, mis- 
erable coward. But let liberty do her work and his 
nature revives. " Is he not a man and a brother ?" 
He will then raise not chained hands, but wield with 
brawny limbs and heart of steel the sword and the 
dagger with all the ferocity of deep revenge. Even 
now, under his present degradation insurrection is 
constantly apprehended, and well it may be, for it is 
prevented by nothing but force. 

Mr. Clay is of this opinion. Dr. Channing takes 
the opposite side. In a comparison of the means of 
information possessed by these distinguished gentle- 
men we might suppose indeed that the greater sources 
were open to Mr. Clay. It would seem too that 
he was likely to have as much firmness as common 
men, and not to indulge in imaginary fears. But 
Dr. Channing has heard " of the fears of the brave," 
and he treats all these apprehensions as chimerical. 
Either because of his ignorance of the danger or the 
stoutness of his nerves he is much more courageous 
than his opponent. He has been in the Slave States 
too and has learned nothing of the danger of his 
white fellow beings. It is doubtful if he wished to. 

Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise. 

In his long residence among Slaves he says he has 



68 

used fewer precautions than at home. But he does 
not discriminate between individual and general dan- 
ger, between private assassination and combinations 
for insurrection and slaughter. Here we guard against 
the solitary robber and are comparatively safe from the 
outbreak of an organized clan. But it is enough for 
us to put one Abolitionist against another. 

" I say then with a heart filled with awe and solem- 
nity that a wide-spread and merciless conspiracy on 
the part of the Slave population is to be regarded 
among the probable occurrences of every day." Gar- 
rison's Oration 4th July, 1830. — p. 24.* 

For a copy of this oration we acknowledge our ob- 
ligation to some unknown hand. 

But it is asked if this be so '' why are they anxious 
to fill their houses and plantations and surround their 
wives and children with assassins?" "Why not 
feel grateful to the Abolitionists who would free them 
from the curse." 

These questions are proposed in more simplicity 
than we should expect from a person who had oppor- 
tunity of " long residences among Slaves." We had 
Keocuck and Black Hawk and a collection of Indians 
making a residence among us last summer, and our 
women and children can testify that an Indian war- 
hoop is harmless music, an Indian war dance only a 

* The same idea is contained in the Report of a Committee of Con- 
gress on Slavery of which Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina was chair- 
man in May, 1836. 



69 

stupid exhibition, and Indian warriors decorated with 
scalps and carrying off rifles and war knives from the 
arsenal of Massachusetts, peaceful inhabitants from the 
fork of two mighty rivers ! As to gratitude to Aboli- 
tionists, it will be felt when it is discovered that they 
cease to do what they can, and all they can, to pro- 
duce the only effect, which their speeches, their writ- 
ing, their societies ever can produce, a general insur- 
rection and the '' unutterable horrors of a servile 
war." 

We hear this very lightly spoken of in the Aboli- 
tion writings. They always express little alarm and 
great courage on the subject of insurrection and 
massacre. 

" You speak as if the thing would please you! 
" By heaven it would." 

The letter writer describes the Slave '^ as so de- 
graded that the strongest sensibilities of his nature 
cannot sting him to do for his children what the hen 
does for her chicken or the trembling hare does for 
her young," and he comments on a speech made not 
long ago in Boston in which he says '' the Slaves 
were compared to wild beasts thirsting for blood." 

Dr. Channing heard that speech, for he left his pul- 
pit to mingle in the crowd of a caucus. He ought 
therefore to know that his representation of it is in- 
correct. No such comparison was made. 

The speaker was endeavoring to illustrate the fears 
of our fellow citizens in the Slave States, as excited 



70 

by the conduct of Abolitionists, and he said their 
fears were what ours would be if a man was about to 
let loose a menagerie of wild beasts upon the popula- 
tion in our streets. The distinction is too broad to 
escape the observation of Dr. C, but in the true 
spirit of the party to which he does not belong he has 
conveyed a wrong impression of the idea of the 
speaker.* 

But does not Dr. C. perceive that if his own repre- 
sentation is correct, he and the Abolitionists are do- 
ing all they can to change these hens and hares into 
a wilderness of tigers. 

The Slave as he has known him, is not a being to 
be feared. Undoubtedly this is true. He has known 
him a debased, humiliated, crouching, humbled, suf- 
fering man. He has seen only the Slave. Let him 
see him when the spirit of hope, of liberty, of eman- 
cipation shall wake up the dormant passions of his 
soul, and if then he can ridicule the fears of our 

*The speech has been carped at by the Abolition press and pictures 
appended to their pubHcations to show the horror of comparing Slaves 
to wild beasts. The criticism is in as bad taste as it is false in its 
allegation, for if the alleged fact was true, what is h but a translation 
of the thought of the Roman Poet. 

Inde lupi ceu 

Raptores, atra in nebula, quos improba ventris 

Exegit caecos rabies, catulique relicti 

Faucibus exspectaut siccis, per tela, per hostes 

Vadimus baud dubiani in mortem. — 
Virgil thought it no harm to make yEneaa compare himself and his 
Trojans to wild beasts. 



71 

Southern friends or the expressions of them by a 
Northern speaker in Faneuil Hall, he may lay what 
claim he can to the character of a philanthropist and 
a christian. 

We are brought by this train of argument to the 
following conclusions. 

The question of Abolition belongs to the people of 
the Slave holding States. 

They are bound to exercise a sound and honest 
judgment under the actual condition and circumstan- 
ces of their country. 

If they have good reason to believe, and do in fact 
believe that Abolition would stir up the two races to 
a war, which w^ould end in the Slavery or extermina- 
tion of one or the other, they stand justified before 
God, and are entitled to the support of all good men, 
in maintaining their institutions. 

Be it remembered forever that our Southern breth- 
ren of the present day are not answerable for the 
present condition of things. The mother country 
entailed upon them this curse for their inheritance. 

We now come to the disgusting subject of Amal- 
gamation, for which we have but brief space. 

Mr. Clay thinks it would be the consequence of 
Abolition. Dr. C. sneers at the objection. Whether 
he doubts the fact, or believes that amalgamation 
would be no great harm does not distinctly appear. 

" What a strange reason" — says our letter-writer 
somewhat quaintly — " for oppressing a race of fellow 



72 

beings that if we restore them to their rights we shall 
marry them." 

But it would be done. 

What prevents it now ? The law is against it. 
Sentiment, opinion, prejudice, call it what you Will, 
is against it. All these the Abolitionists will break 
down. We have great instruction on this point from 
the West Indies. 

'' The Governor of Antigua remarked to us" — says 
the six months tour — ■'' that the first thing to be done 
in our country towards the removal of Slavery, was 
to discard the absurd notion that color made any dif- 
ference intellectually or morally among men. All 
distinctions, said he, founded in color, must be abol- 
ished every where. We should learn to talk of men 
not as colored men, but as men, as fellow citizens and 
fellow subjects." — p. 13. 

It is stated as the result of Abolition in that isl- 
and, that emancipation has been followed by a 
" manifest diminution of prejudice against color, and 
has opened the prospect of its speedy extirpation." — 
p. 51. 

Again in Jamaica. *' The prejudices against color 
are rapidly vanishing. I do not think there is a re- 
spectable man who would impugne another's conduct 
for associating with people of color."- — p. 51. 

In Barbadoes it is admitted " that this cruel feeling 
still exists. Prejudice is the last viper of the Slavery 
gendered brood that dies. But it is evidently grow- 
ing weaker." — p. 70. 



73 

The scenes, which are exhibited, are in accordance 
with this aboHtion of prejudice. 

"Among other things which we witnessed, we shall 
not soon forget having seen a curley headed negro 
lad examining a class of white young ladies in scien- 
tific history." — p. 87. 

" We had the pleasure of being present at the sit- 
ting of the Police Court of Kingston. Mr. Jordan 
the editor of the Watchman, in his turn as a member 
of the Common Council, was presiding Justice, with 
an Alderman of the City, a black man, as his asso- 
ciate." — p. 90. 

The lawyer, who would practice before a negro 
Judge, would marry his daughter. 

But why go abroad for examples. In the present 
low, degraded and servile condition of the colored 
ladies and gentlemen, there are whites petitioning the 
legislature of Massachusetts for leave to marry them. 

Give them a social equality, and the purity of the 
Anglo Saxon blood will be permanently contaminated. 

We oppose all this, not from prejudice but judg* 
ment. In our opinion it will debase the white race 
and do no good to the black. It will carry back 
civilization, degrade us in the eyes of mankind, and 
humble us in our own. 

If it could elevate the black race, it would be at 
the expense of the white. We do not agree to pro- 
duce this result. We go for our own race, as Lord 
Grey went for his " order," because we believe the 
happiness of the whole people^ — the only practicable 



74 

and useful benevolence we understand — depends on 
the social condition, the purity, elevation and good 
morals of the great majority. 

We do not call it prejudice. Distinction between 
the races has sound wisdom for its basis. 

The negro is different from the white man, not in 
color only, but in features, hair, arterial and ana- 
tomical formation, some animal functions, and what- 
ever there is in the instincts of physical nature. 

If God has made of one blood all nations of the 
earth, he has made them of different skins and skulls, 
complections and physical character. 

He intended to mark them, that they might be 
kept separate. They will stand at the last day equal 
candidates for his mercy, but he has appointed to 
them different paths to travel, before they shall be 
called before his throne. We have nothing to do 
now with the question about equality. We say only 
that they are different. Between the black and the 
white races a mark is placed for perpetual distinction, 
and he who dares to break it down, he who gives the 
sanction of the marriage connection between the two 
races, comes under the spirit of a curse,* denounced 
by the lawgiver of Jerusalem and ^'all the people 
shall say amen." 

♦Duetronomy, ch. 27, v. 21. 



75 

We have concluded our Review of Dr. C.'s book. 
To prevent misconception we take leave to add that 
we wholly dissent from Mr. Clay's doctrine in regard to 
the Dower of Congress. In our judgment Congress has 
authority under the Constitution to abolish Slavery in 
the District of Columbia, and it will be its duty to ex- 
ercise this authority whenever it can be done safely 
and prudently. We wholly dissent from the course 
taken by Congress in respect to the petitions. We 
hold it to be a violation of our constitutional rights. 
We think it is injurious also to the South. If our 
voice could have any influence we would insist that our 
Southern friends should rescind these resolutions. Let 
them meet the question and give to it the best answer 
they can. Their course makes up a false issue to 
the country, and invigorates Abolition. They may 
depend upon it that they cannot maintain any insti- 
tution by force, which they cannot sustain by argu- 
ment and reason, under the circumstances in which 
they are placed. 

We add in justice to our own feelings that we look 
on Slavery as the great curse of the Country ; as 
an institution that is fraught with incalculable evils 
threatening confusion, disunion and destruction. We 
are acquainted with no terms that are too strong to 
express our feelings in reprobation of it. But we speak 
of it more in sorrow than in anger, because we see no 
practicable way to remove it, without putting fire to 
a magazine of gunpowder and bringing it to a fear- 
ful end by one tremendous explosion. 



76 

We had intended to have amused ourselves and 
our readers by exhibiting some specimens of that 
Narcissus-hke love of its own fancied charms, which 
appears so complacently in this letter, and to have 
presented for examination some of those literary beau- 
ties which the admirers of our author find thickly 
scattered through his works. But we have extended 
our remarks far enough and must borrow what re- 
mains from a paper ascribed to Lord Brougham. 

It is to be found in the Edinburgh Review for 
April, 1839, in remarks on Dr. Channing's character 
of John Milton, with the very appropriate running 
title of '^ false taste.'^ 

" His opinions " — says the Edinburgh critic speak- 
ing of Dr. Channing's works — " indicate a very de- 
fective taste and show that in his own practice of writ- 
ing he goes wrong on a false theory, and in pursuit of 
the striking — the grand — the uncommon." 

^' Men of some note and whose names have risen 
into fame beyond their real merits, may contaminate 
the taste both by laying down false rules of criticism, 
which the weight of their authority has a tendency 
to enforce, and by themselves forming tlieir writings on 
a false model of criticism. It appears to us that 
Dr. Channing has succeeded in both these ways on 
the present occasion." 

'' In every page we trace its evil influence in most 
careless thinking and most careless diction, a constant 
mistaking of strange things for strong ones — a per- 
petual striving for some half brought out notion of 



77 

which the mind has never formed to itself any distinct 
picture — a substitution of the glare of words for har- 
monious ideas, and we are sorry to add, that worst 
vice of bad writers, the assuming to use words in a 
sense peculiar to themselves, partly in order to strike 
by novelty, and partly in order to save the pains of 
more legitimate and correct composition." 

These are the Edinburgh Reviewers remarks on 
Dr. Channing's general style. We had not seen them 
when we were writing our own commentary on his 
letter, which contains abundant illustration of all the 
characteristics thus appropriately noticed. 



ERRATA. 

Page 5, for conform read conforms. 

19, for manifestedly read manifestly. 
51, for sequiter read sequitur. 
58, for decisive read denied. 
The punctuation of the sentence should be altered so as to read, 
as it is inseparable from government, the right of imposing it is not 
denied, by practical and intelligent men. 



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